海角大神

President Obama parachuted in to the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin this weekend, where some tens of thousands of entrepreneurs, coders, and executives are gathering to hear the most creative ideas in technology, with a pitch of his own: Recruiting fresh digital talent to the US government.

But his hiring mission was overshadowed by a debate that has pitted many in the tech industry against US officials, especially since the San Bernardino, Calif. terror attacks: 听What鈥檚 the right balance to strike on protecting national security and American citizens鈥� privacy when it comes to encryption?

In his strongest statement to date on this issue, Mr. Obama insisted that, to ensure the country remains safe and secure, law enforcement and intelligence agencies must have a way to get around encryption for investigations into terrorism and child pornography.

鈥淚f your argument is strong encryption, no matter what, and we can and should in fact create black boxes, that in fact does not strike the kind of balance that we鈥檝e lived with for 200, 300 years,鈥� he said on Friday. 鈥淚t鈥檚 fetishizing our phones above every other value 鈥撎齛nd that can鈥檛 be the right answer.鈥�

If strong encryption on a device or system doesn鈥檛 allow law enforcement to get into the device with a warrant, he said, 鈥渢hen how do we apprehend the child pornographer? 听How do we solve or disrupt a terrorist plot? 听What mechanisms do we have available to even do simple things like tax enforcement? Because if in fact, you can't crack that at all, government can't get in, then everybody is walking around with a Swiss bank account in their pocket 鈥� right? 听So there has to be some concession to the need to be able to get into that information somehow.鈥�

Obama refused to comment directly on the Justice Department鈥檚 push to force Apple to write new software that would disable security features on an iPhone belonging to San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook to help law enforcement access the data.听

Still, his comments听indicate听that he does not agree with the position Apple and many other companies are taking in a legal battle听many see as a test case for a broader fight over encryption听on consumer devices.听

Apple, the world鈥檚 largest tech company, insists that building a new, weaker operating system for the government to bypass the encryption on the product would amount to a backdoor that could unlock all sorts of devices and put its millions of consumers at risk.听A slew of tech companies have also joined the fight, filing legal briefs to a US magistrate judge overseeing the case.

At the Austin-based gathering that鈥檚 increasingly become a hub for Silicon Valley innovators, Obama called for a way forward on the encryption debate 鈥撎齛nd for both sides of the debate to find middle ground. The right answer, he proposed, could be 鈥渁 system where encryption is as strong as possible, the key is as secure as possible,鈥� and potentially accessible to a small subset of federal investigators.

Obama also said government agencies should not be able to get into iPhones 鈥渏ust willy nilly鈥� and emphasized his concern for preserving citizens鈥� privacy. 听鈥淚 am way on the civil liberties side of this thing鈥�. I anguish a lot over the decisions we make in terms of how to keep this country safe,鈥� he said, 鈥渁nd I am not interested in overthrowing the values that have made us an exceptional and great nation simply for expediency.鈥�

Also at SXSW, Passcode will host its own panel 鈥� 鈥溾�� 鈥� exploring these very issues with key figures in the encryption debate, including noted cryptographer Matt Blaze and former National Security Agency counsel Stewart Baker.

While the commander-in-chief had a patient audience of more than 2,000 people in the convention hall, the idea of creating a way into encrypted devices did not sit well with one Congressman attending the festival.

鈥淭here鈥檚 just no way to create a special key for government that couldn鈥檛 also be taken advantage of by the Russians, the Chinese, or others who want access to the sensitive information that we all carry in our pockets every day,鈥� said Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican who grilled FBI Director James Comey on the subject at a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week.

The first American president to attend South By Southwest, Obama also used the forum to promote the US Digital Service, the federal government鈥檚 fledgling civil service designed for the connected world, and Washington鈥檚 role in bringing together social media companies and content creators to fight the Islamic State online.